Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, at Thurs­day’s me­dia brief­ing, con­tin­ued mul­ti-pitched bol­ster­ing of her Gov­ern­ment’s ef­fect and cause.

Pitch­ing plans and prod­uct, stroking and yok­ing labour part­ners/mem­bers with pay­back and per­sua­sion on co-op­er­a­tion. Pro­nounc­ing on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). Camp con­trol and coun­try work on.

Yes­ter­day’s PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil dis­cus­sions on in­ter­nal polls may have at­tempt­ed same as far pos­si­ble, seek­ing firm­ing and foot­ing post-de­feat

Gov­ern­ment’s work has al­ready shaped its first six months of of­fice af­ter en­ter­ing the first ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment’s term next Fri­day - end­ing any “hon­ey­moon.”

Be­yond Bud­get 2026 pro­jec­tions, as­pects ahead in­clude am­bas­sadors’ ap­point­ments, and sev­er­al PNM ap­pointees who re­signed and re­turn­ing soon, it’s con­firmed.

In Par­lia­ment, among Gov­ern­ment’s 26 MPs, the AG, Fi­nance, Plan­ning, En­er­gy, Works and Pub­lic Util­i­ties are ex­pect­ed to be front­lin­ers around Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Some ex­pect Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har “some­where” - in­clud­ing the Sen­ate - but there’s un­cer­tain­ty about Cab­i­net. With the re­turn of COP’s chair­man to T&T last week, sources said moves are on for a meet­ing re­gard­ing in­ter­nal COP elec­tions, in­clud­ing lead­er­ship.

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are tipped as a mix of aca­d­e­m­ic, fi­nan­cial, eco­nom­ic and HR ex­per­tise - in­clud­ing some­one for­mer­ly in­volved in an area fig­ur­ing in head­line news con­tro­ver­sy four years ago.

Whether UNC’s 26 MPs have room on Gov­ern­ment’s back bench for To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) MPs David Thomas and Joel Samp­son is ahead; or whether their in­de­pen­dence will be re­in­forced by seat­ing at the ex­treme end of the row be­hind the PNM. Samp­son’s Crown Point Bon Ac­cord seat re­mains va­cant un­til THA elec­tions, since it’s a THA elec­tion year up to March 2026. Sub­se­quent­ly, there’s a year’s break un­til Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions due in 2027 (not 2026.)

The TPP’s 2026 Bud­get cal­cu­la­tions come in late June, fol­low­ing the mid-year re­view of the 2025 Bud­get. The re­view’s ex­pect­ed mid-June, it’s un­der­stood. Pri­or­i­ty item on Par­lia­ment’s agen­da re­gard­ing T&T’s fi­nan­cial foot­ing and UNC’s so­lu­tions, the re­view does dou­ble du­ty in scor­ing po­lit­i­cal points against the pre­vi­ous PNM’s man­age­ment of sys­tems.

Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions have set the stage for a con­cert­ed take­down of the PNM: un­earthing ques­tion­able hir­ings and sim­i­lar un­der­tak­ings un­der that gov­ern­ment, re­ports track­ing is­sues in every sec­tor, in­clud­ing forex re­cip­i­ents - plan­ning to re­veal them, as was done in Per­sad- Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion - the Cli­co re­port and lat­est Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Re­port with “se­ri­ous rev­e­la­tions.”

This, amid PNM’s weak­ened state. The par­ty should have known to take its cue from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s gen­er­al de­c­la­ra­tion last Thurs­day that she’d been “too nice” be­fore. Seek­ing to en­trench her Gov­ern­ment amid a PNM whose ma­chin­ery’s at op­ti­mum mi­nus di­vi­sion, any tool is ex­pect­ed to be wield­ed by the UNC.

With con­tin­u­ing signs of the Pen­ny Beck­les-Robin­son-led PNM hav­ing its own op­po­si­tion with­in, UNC je­fes on Tues­day felt com­fort­able enough to re­mark that once she was there, they’d be in Gov­ern­ment. The non-com­pli­ment un­der­scored that the par­ty still needs work to dis­pel the per­cep­tion of be­ing oc­cu­pied with fight­ing with­in rather than Gov­ern­ment, with­out.

Be­yond yes­ter­day’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil dis­cus­sion on PNM’s June in­ter­nal elec­tion date, that con­test will re­veal what­ev­er “con­tests” are oc­cur­ring in­ter­nal­ly. PNM in­ter­nal elec­tions dur­ing Op­po­si­tion pe­ri­ods and even in the last 2022 in­ter­nals (while in Gov­ern­ment) saw mul­ti­ple per­sons con­test­ing posts - in­clud­ing Beck­les ver­sus Frankie Khan for chair­man in 2011.

While the ear­ly tim­ing bids to re­in­force Beck­les’ lead­er­ship and scotch di­vi­sion, a June elec­tion will oc­cur when UNC’s Gov­ern­ment is pump­ing with new­bie min­is­te­r­i­al vigour.

Apart from whether PNM’s Sen­ate picks could see the term “los­er” dog­ging the par­ty for five years, the per­cep­tion of a PNM where di­vi­sion sim­mers silent­ly will cloud the par­ty’s im­age in Par­lia­ment. In­clud­ing who’s seat­ed clos­est - or fur­thest - to Beck­les when Par­lia­ment work be­gins.

Di­vi­sions are clear. PNM Change­mak­ers’ lurk­ing protests. De­feat­ed can­di­date Fos­ter Cum­mings’ dis­tanc­ing him­self from the pre­vi­ous PNM lead­er­ship’s elec­tion strat­e­gy. Whether dif­fer­ing views, in­clud­ing from cer­tain oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, com­pound­ed PNM’s loss of 102,000 votes. How long dif­fer­ing views the af­fect­ed PNM be­fore the idea of Stu­art Young for leader arose. And how per­son­al­i­ties mesh now.

With the gloss of next Fri­day’s Par­lia­ment’s launch, the re­al­i­ty of both sides will still be in­com­plete. Un­til af­ter.